Skip to main content
Main

Good Family Mutton Broth

A hearty mutton broth made with shanks, neck, loin, carrots, turnips, celery, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Good Family Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Place the mutton shanks at the bottom of a pot.

  2. Add the carrots, onion, 1 quart of cold water, and 1 teaspoon of salt, then stew gently for 2.5 hours.

Add the remaining ingredients

  1. Add 2 quarts of cold water, neck of mutton pieces, chump of loin, and another teaspoon of salt.

  2. Add the turnips and celery.

  3. Cover closely and simmer for 2 more hours.

  4. Remove the meat from the pot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton shanks
Release gelatin and deep meaty flavor into the long-cooked broth.
Neck of mutton
Adds rich, fatty meat flavor and body to the broth as it simmers.
Chump of loin of mutton
Contributes lean meat that becomes tender and flavorful during the simmer.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a soft texture as they cook in the broth.

The step that matters

Stew gently rather than boil. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear; vigorous boiling breaks up fats and proteins, making the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, celery):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More mutton broth recipes

Scotch 33with Chops 5Jelly 3with Roots 3 See all 391 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes